Professor Tilo Kunath

Group Leader, Chair of Regenerative Neurobiology

Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Institute for Regeneration and Repair
School of Biological Sciences

Tel: 0131 651 9500
Email: tilo.kunath@ed.ac.uk

Street: Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Institute for Regeneration and Repair
The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh BioQuarter
5 Little France Drive
City: Edinburgh
Post code: EH16 4UU

Biography

Background

PhD at the University of Toronto with Prof Janet Rossant
Post-doctoral studies with Prof Austin Smith, Edinburgh
Visiting professor at the University of Tsukuba

Teaching & PhD supervision

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Yixi Chen (PhD Student)

Ammar Natalwala (Wellcome Trust funded Research Training Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Neurosurgery)

Craig Leighton (PhD Student)

Sophie Glendinning (PhD Student)

Research

Research summary

Mechanisms of neurodegeneration

Parkinson’s is a progressive neurodegenerative condition that affects millions of people world-wide.

Our lab is focussed in two main areas (i) understanding how the protein, alpha-synuclein, causes degeneration of neurons in Parkinson’s, and (ii) producing a cell-based therapy for Parkinson’s. Central to this aim is generation of midbrain dopaminergic neurons from human pluripotent stem cells. We use patient-derived material to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with genetic mutations know to cause Parkinson’s.

Aims and areas of interest

The primary aim of the lab is to understand how disease proteins, such as α-synuclein, cause neurodegeneration, and use this understanding to generate novel therapeutics.

Research activities

Fusion: Art meets Science 12 Oct 2017
Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017 6 Aug 2017

View all 3 activities on Research Explorer

Publications

1-Deoxynojirimycin promotes cardiac function and rescues mitochondrial cristae in mitochondrial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (52 pages) 18 May 2023 In: Journal of Clinical Investigation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI164660
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Single-Molecule Two-Color Coincidence Detection of Unlabeled alpha-Synuclein Aggregates 3 Apr 2023 In: Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 62
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202216771
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Determining the location of the α-synuclein dimer Interface using native top-down fragmentation and isotope depletion-mass spectrometry (10 pages) 28 Mar 2023 In: Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.2c00339
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Protein aggregation and calcium dysregulation are hallmarks of familial Parkinson's disease in midbrain dopaminergic neurons (22 pages) 24 Nov 2022 In: npj Parkinson's Disease, vol. 8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-022-00423-7
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Alpha-synuclein supports type 1 interferon signalling in neurons and brain tissue 1 Oct 2022 In: Brain, vol. 145, pp. 3622-3636
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awac192
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Pathological structural conversion of α-synuclein at the mitochondria induces neuronal toxicity Sep 2022 In: Nature Neuroscience, vol. 25, pp. 1134-1148
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-022-01140-3
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Generation of a CHIP isogenic human iPSC-derived cortical neuron model for functional proteomics (33 pages) 17 Jun 2022 In: STAR Protocols, vol. 3, pp. 101247
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101247
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
An isogenic collection of pluripotent stem cell lines with elevated α-synuclein expression validated for neural induction and cortical neuron differentiation (16 pages) 30 May 2022 In: Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, vol. 10
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2022.898560
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Human embryonic stem cell-derived dopaminergic grafts alleviate L-DOPA induced dyskinesia (17 pages) 22 Apr 2022 In: Journal of Parkinson's disease, pp. 1-16
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3233/JPD-212920
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Midbrain organoids with an SNCA gene triplication model key features of synucleinopathy (21 pages) 25 Sep 2021 In: Brain Communications, vol. 3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcab223
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
CHIP-Dependent Regulation of the Actin Cytoskeleton is Linked to Neuronal Cell Membrane Integrity 17 Jul 2021 In: iScience, pp. 102878
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102878
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print)
Metabolomics of sebum reveals lipid dysregulation in Parkinson’s disease (9 pages) 11 Mar 2021 In: Nature Communications, vol. 12
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21669-4
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Validating differential volatilome profiles in Parkinson’s disease (7 pages) 24 Feb 2021 In: ACS Central Science, vol. 7, pp. 300-306
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.0c01028
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Cryopreservation of human midbrain dopaminergic neural progenitor cells poised for neuronal differentiation (13 pages) 5 Nov 2020 In: Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, vol. 8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2020.578907
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Synaptic signalling in a network of dopamine neurons: What prevents proper inter-cellular crosstalk? 16 Aug 2020 In: FEBS Letters
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.13910
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print)
Alpha synuclein aggregation drives ferroptosis: An interplay of iron, calcium and lipid peroxidation 27 Apr 2020 In: Cell Death & Differentiation (CDD)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-020-0542-z
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Multiomics analyses of HNF4a protein domain function during human pluripotent stem cell differentiation 24 May 2019 In: iScience
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2019.05.028
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
α-Synuclein-Confocal Nanoscanning (ASYN-CONA), a Bead-Based Assay for Detecting Early-Stage α-Synuclein Aggregation (9 pages) 7 May 2019 In: Analytical Chemistry, vol. 91, pp. 5582-5590
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.8b03842
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Discovery of volatile biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from sebum (8 pages) 24 Apr 2019 In: ACS Central Science, vol. 5, pp. 599–606
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00879
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Are PARKIN patients ideal candidates for dopaminergic cell replacement therapies? 26 Dec 2018 In: European Journal of Neuroscience
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14314
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print)

View all 53 publications on Research Explorer

Funders

Collaborators

Prof Cait MacPhee, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (https://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/people/cait-macphee)
Dr Mathew Horrocks, School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh (http://www.horrockslab.org/)
Dr Michele Zagnoni, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/zagnonimicheledr/)
Dr J David Beckham, University of Colorado Denver, USA (https://som.ucdenver.edu/Profiles/Faculty/Profile/9071)
Prof Perdita Barran, University of Manchester

This article was published on 24 Apr, 2024